This invention relates to a modelling arrangement particularly but not exclusively useful as a design aid to architects, consulting engineers and other professional designers and their clients.
For many years models have been used to assist a designer and client to decide the finished appearance of a building, ship, process plant, room and the like. Such models are representational only and deal with the parts of the design which appeal to the eye. One recent example of such models is the PSSHAK system, described in Architects Journal, Oct. 12, 1977, pages 692-693, London, in which the client can model a desirable building layout of rooms and fittings using 3-dimensional scale models.
Such systems have value and can help the designer and client to achieve a better design. An analysis of the various aids now available is in Sorte, G.J., Methods for presenting Planned Environments, Man-Environment systems Vol. 5, No. 3, (1975) pp 148-154. One conclusion of this analysis is that a 3-dimensional physical model is probably the most suitable design analog and therefore the most useful aid at the designer/client interface.
In recent years Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) systems have been developed. Typically in such a system floor plans are displayed on a cathode-ray tube screen and adjusted by the designer in accordance with the client's proposals. Such plans are two-dimensional and are not always easy to relate to an actual construction. Usually the system can calculate and display the performance of the design from supplied parameters. One recent example of CAAD is the PARTIAL system described in CAD Education in Architecture, Proc. of Int. Conf. Computer Aided Design Education (CAD ED) IPC (1978) London.
Thus a physical 3-dimensional scale model is the easiest for the lay client to use. However such models are the most expensive to build, slowest to make and most difficult to alter. Also the model is not easily linked to the calculating facility in a computer.
Furthermore the model does not in any way relate to the structure or performance of the actual designed product, as the model is made usually of card and wood rather than brick, glass, steel and concrete.